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Culture & Psychology

 

I was trained under the guidance of Harry Triandis and am interested in understanding what makes human groups similar and different in order to broaden psychological science, as well as to inform policy. My early work focused on the distinction of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism (see the scale here). Our team has recently begun to systematically investigate the strength of norms across cultures, or what is referred to as cultural tightness-looseness (TL). Teaming up with partners around the world and from different disciplines, we are doing research on the ecological and historical factors that promote TL at both the national and state level, the neurobiological and genetic underpinnings of TL, the evolutionary basis of TL, and the implications of TL for organizations, expatriates, and for societal well-being. I also research subjective culture (e.g., honor, wasta, fatalism) in the Middle East. We use laboratory, field, computational, EEG, and fRMI to examine our research questions.

I also edit the series Advances in Cultural Psychology which summarizes important research programs in the emerging field of Cultural Psychology.

See papers in this area below. 

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Jackson, J. C., Gelfand, M., & Ember, C. (2020). A global analysis of cultural tightness in non-industrial societies. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 287, 20201036. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/9s57z

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Salvador, C. E., Kraus, B. T., Ackerman, J. M., Gelfand, M. J., & Kitayama, S. (2020). Interdependent self-construal predicts reduced sensitivity to norms under pathogen threat: An electrocortical investigation. Biological Psychology, 157, 107970.

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Pan, X., Nau, D., & Gelfand, M. (2020, November). Cooperative norms and the growth of threat: Differences across tight and loose cultures. In 2020 7th International Conference on Behavioural and Social Computing (BESC) (in press). IEEE.

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Elster, A., & Gelfand, M. J. (2020). When guiding principles do not guide: The moderating effects of cultural tightness on value-behavior links. Journal of Personality. Advanced online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12584

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Jackson, J. C., Gelfand, M., De, S., & Fox, A. (2019). The loosening of American culture over 200 years is associated with a creativity–order trade-off. Nature Human Behavior, 3(3), 244.

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Geeraert, N., Li, R., Ward, C., Gelfand, M., & Demes, K. A. (2019). A tight spot: How personality moderates the impact of social norms on sojourner adaptation. Psychological Science, 30(3), 333-342.

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Stamkou, E., van Kleef, G. A., Homan, A. C., Gelfand, M. J., van de Vijver, F. J., van Egmond, M. C., ... & Cantarero, K. (2019). Cultural collectivism and tightness moderate responses to norm violators: Effects on power perception, moral emotions, and leader support. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(6), 947-964.

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Gelfand, M. J. (2019). Universal and culture-specific patterns of tightness-looseness across the 31 Chinese provinces. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(14), 6522-6524.

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Jackson, J. C., van Egmond, M., Choi, V. K., Ember, C. R., Halberstadt, J., Balanovic, J., ... & Gelfand, M. J. (2019). Ecological and cultural factors underlying the global distribution of prejudice. PloS ONE, 14(9), e0221953.

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Van Kleef, G., Gelfand, M. J., & Jetten, J. (2019). The dynamic nature of social norms: New perspectives on norm development, impact, violation, and enforcement. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 103814, 103814-103814. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2019.05.002

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Gelfand, M. J. (2019) Explaining the puzzle of human diversity. Science, 366(6466), 686-687.

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De S., Nau D. S., Pan X., Gelfand M. J. (2018). Tipping points for norm change in human cultures. In Thomson R., Dancy C., Hyder A., Bisgin H. (Eds.), Social, Cultural, and Behavioral Modeling. SBP-BRiMS 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 10899.

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Gelfand, M. J., Aycan, Z., Erez, M., & Leung, K. (2017). Cross-cultural industrial organizational psychology and organizational behavior: A hundred-year journey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 514.

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Gelfand, M. J., Harrington, J. R., & Jackson, J. C. (2017). The strength of social norms across human groups. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(5), 800-809.

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Li, R., Gordon, S., & Gelfand, M. J. (2017). Tightness–looseness: A new framework to understand consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 27(3), 377-391.

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Mu, Y., Han, S., & Gelfand, M. J. (2017). The role of gamma interbrain synchrony in social coordination when humans face territorial threats. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(10), 1614-1623.

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De, S., Nau, D.S., & Gelfand, M. (2017). Understanding norm change: An evolutionary game-theoretic approach. In Das, S., Durfee, E., Larson, K., & Winikoff, E. (Eds.). Proceedings of the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, 1433-1441.

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Aktas, M., Gelfand, M. J., & Hanges, P. J. (2016). Cultural tightness–looseness and perceptions of effective leadership. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 47(2), 294-309.

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De, S., Gelfand, M. J., Nau, D., & Roos, P. (2016). The inevitability of ethnocentrism revisited: Ethnocentrism diminishes as mobility increases. Scientific Reports, 5, 17963.

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Gunia, B. C., Brett, J. M., & Gelfand, M. J. (2016). The science of culture and negotiation. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 78-83.

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Gelfand, M. J., & Jackson, J. C. (2016). From one mind to many: the emerging science of cultural norms. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 175-181.

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Gelfand, M. J., & Kashima, Y. (2016). Editorial overview: Culture: Advances in the science of culture and psychology. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8(1), 1-7.

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Roos, P., Gelfand, M., Nau, D., & Lun, J. (2015). Societal threat and cultural variation in the strength of social norms: An evolutionary basis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 129, 14-23.

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Realo, A., Linnamägi, K., & Gelfand, M. J. (2015). The cultural dimension of tightness–looseness: An analysis of situational constraint in Estonia and Greece. International Journal of Psychology, 50(3), 193-204.

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Mu, Y., Kitayama, S., Han, S., & Gelfand, M. J. (2015). How culture gets embrained: Cultural differences in event-related potentials of social norm violations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(50), 15348-15353.

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Harrington, J. R., Boski, P., & Gelfand, M. J. (2015). Culture and national well-being: Should societies emphasize freedom or constraint?. PloS one, 10(6), e0127173.

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Harrington, J. R., & Gelfand, M. J. (2014). Tightness–looseness across the 50 united states. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(22), 7990-7995.

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Roos, P., Gelfand, M., Nau, D., & Carr, R. (2014). High strength-of-ties and low mobility enable the evolution of third-party punishment. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 281(1776), 20132661.

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Salas, E., & Gelfand, M. J. (2013). Introduction to the Special Issue: Collaboration in multicultural environments. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34(6), 735-738.

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Mrazek, A. J., Chiao, J. Y., Blizinsky, K. D., Lun, J., & Gelfand, M. J. (2013). The role of culture–gene coevolution in morality judgment: Examining the interplay between tightness–looseness and allelic variation of the serotonin transporter gene. Culture and Brain, 1(2-4), 100-117.

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